On your Marks

19 April 2017Dan Silkstone

In formula one they call it closing speed, the rate at which you approach what lies in front of you. In formula one, as with everything else, it is faster.

So it is that Mark Webber arrived in Melbourne for this weekend's grand prix, closing in on two things he has wanted as long as he can remember and the one thing he prefers, for now at least, not to contemplate.

Lewis Hamilton is a canny operator, a little too canny for his own good here last year. The McLaren driver implicitly grasped the two questions all have been asking of Webber this week. With the car he has long coveted finally handed over to him, can the veteran handle the pressure of expectation to win at home and elsewhere this year? And how much longer will he go on at this level?

According to those who know him best, Webber might just be Australia's most boring sporting star. Thank God. The 33-year-old is an anachronism of the sort almost vanished from the sports pages. A star attraction almost entirely defined by his actual performances.

Webber

Those closest to him have been there since the early days of his career. The words they use to describe him might not sell too many energy drinks but are tinged with admiration: Normal. Straightforward. Focused.

Paul Stoddart, who gave him his break in F1 and remains a good friend, says Webber has a dedication and focus rivalled only by Michael Schumacher in the modern era.

“They are all great drivers but there are very few so dedicated and so determined,” he says. “Knowing almost all of them, Mark falls into that rare category of someone who is completely focused on racing. He doesn't care about fame or model girlfriends or fancy houses. He lives to race.”

Ciaran Pilbeam has been Webber's personal race engineer for the past four years. It is his job to work closely with the driver to set the car up just right.

Related Content

“He's very good to work with,” Pilbeam says. "He's just really straightforward, quite clear in his feedback. Uncomplicated and undramatic. He's easy.”

Finally, it has paid off. This year, Red Bull has produced what Webber must have despaired he might never get: a competitive car.

A year ago the Red Bull team adapted well to a new rules framework but did not initially realise how fast was their machine. Webber was in a terrible state, having battled through a hasty rehabilitation after badly breaking his leg in a bike accident in Tasmania. Everybody was watching the Brawn of Jenson Button.

This year all eyes are on Red Bull. In Melbourne – although teammate Sebastian Vettel is race favourite – that means they are on Webber. After nine years of trying he might never get a better chance to win his home grand prix. Walking through the paddock this week he could barely move for handshakes and back slaps.

That Hamilton is talking about Webber and his car shows that others see the combination as a threat. They wonder if, unaccustomed to being a frontrunner, Webber can be pressured into error.

Pilbeam says Red Bull's pace is exciting but has been overstated by rivals. The improvement has been gradual, no great leap forward. The aerodynamics have been tweaked but the engine is much the same.

What about the driver?

If once there were perceived weaknesses, the evidence does not suggest it.

“Mark's racing is very strong now,” Pilbeam says. “In the past he had a reputation, fair or not, for being able to qualify but not so good at the racing. That could have been the cars he was in. Now his racing is as strong as his qualifying.”

Pilbeam calls Webber “a down to earth, normal guy”.

They work intensely together on race weekends but don't socialise much. That's how Webber is.

Ann Neal, Webber's partner and manager, can't think of many with whom he is close in the sport but nominates Red Bull team boss Christian Horner as a mate.

Says Horner: “He's got a car that has the capability to run at the front and physically he is in much better shape than he was 12 months ago.”

He remembers being at home in England in November 2008 and getting the phone call. Nothing too serious, he was told. Just a bicycle accident. He turned on the BBC to see Webber – on a gurney and hooked up to a drip – being loaded into a hospital helicopter.

Neal sent through the X-rays that showed Webber's right leg had been shattered. For her the call came in the middle of the night. “Straight away I knew something was really wrong," she says. She immediately booked a flight and rushed to his side.

Many doubted he could come back so quickly but Horner and Neal were not among them. Their man would race again, soon.

“I don't know anyone else that could have done what he did and come back so quickly with so much pain,” Stoddart marvels. “The first several races of last year he was seriously in a lot of pain. He is private about the details but it was tremendous pain. It still isn't easy.”

Webber still suffers “a few niggles”. None who know him well believe it a thing so easily shrugged off.

Like Stoddart, Horner is a long-standing fan. He first spied the Australian driving Formula 3000 in the 1990s and tried, unsuccessfully, to sign him. When the team decided to drop Christian Klien in late 2006, the Australian, then at underperforming Williams, was top of the shopping list.

“His strengths are his character, his determination and his single-mindedness,” Horner says. “He's got the experience now, he's got the confidence, he's got the breakthrough wins and pole positions out of the way . . . There's a big difference between thinking you can win and knowing it. Winning in Germany last year was a big thing for Mark, it had been a long time coming.”

Horner and Webber have started a team in the lower-level GP3 series and want to use it to give young drivers the kind of leg-up for which Webber had to fight so hard. It will one day help sustain him in retirement – the factor he prefers, for now at least, not to contemplate. Not yet.

Among his generation, Schumacher stands alone. Many have anointed Vettel as his most likely successor. Webber is probably not at the top level for talent, although he is very quick. Horner says the Australian is the hardest working and fittest driver he has seen.

“There have been world champions with less ability than Mark who have just been in better cars,” he says.

Asked to describe her partner in one word, Neal says “hungry”.

His elder by some years, she started as his manager and they later fell in love. He was her discovery. Her career goal initially was to get him into formula one, since then it has been to keep him there. Now it is to win.

They met in 1994 when he was driving Formula Ford and dreaming of F1.

“He just had a persona about him which was a little bit different," she says. His results were good but not great. He could drive, but more importantly, he had drive.

“He wanted to achieve something," Neal says. “Do something different. Not to be famous, not to be rich, he just wanted to race formula one."

After racing, Webber plans to climb Mt Everest, a long-term goal.

“I don't think he'll hang on for as long as he can," Neal says. “He wants to quit when he is in a good position."